OK then, 1990 8V GTi standard condition 120Kmiles, serviced by me <2Kmiles ago, usually starts almost instantly even if it's been left a week or more.
Motor spinning but not firing.
Plugs getting wet so fuel getting thro' also tried a quick squirt of ether down the inlet - no change.
Sparks at king lead (orange & several mm long) - seems reasonable. Also sparks at plugs (clean, gapped & <2K old). All HT OK, clean & <3 years old.
Checked the HT coil resistance (Prim about 0.9ohms, sec about 3Kohms)
All earths OK battery to body, battery to engine etc.
Battery good condition 12.6VDC
Cleaned relevent connex
Did this trick last weekend but I had the thing running on Wednesday, thought it was an issue with something getting wet then the plugs being soaked by fuel as cleaning them out worked and the car fired - a bit 'missy' at first then settling to an nice normal idle in a couple of seconds. Went for a 15 mile drive to run some errands - no problem at all, ran fine, restarted on cue (so confident nothing silly or obscure like timing being wildly out for some reason or the cambelt jumping a tooth etc). Next morning, back to square one!
Tried going down the Haynes route, checked:
12V at coil
12V at TI switch unit (pins 2 & 4)
12V at the multiplug on the dizzy (pins 1 & 3)
All OK so far.
BUT:
Checked voltage across coil with hall multiplug disconn'd, supposed to be 2V for a second or so then decaying to 0V - got only a few mV, no switch.
Tried the next check, short centre pin to ground with ign on, should get same effect - again, nothing like 2V.
I noticed that there was no earth screen-type lead coming from the dizzy as shown in the manual but there never has been to my knowledge all the time I've had the car (about 3 years), is this important? There is earth continuity between the dizzy and engine, I tested this.
Sooooooooo:
Haynes suggests the switch unit is u/s (& the coil too??) - do the experts agree or am I missing the point here? Any further ideas or tests I can run?
If it is the switch unit (and I'm normally loathe to condemn electronics): How much is a new 'un? Can they be got from GSF or the like or is it a main stealer rip-off (or ebay!)?
Any ideas people??
Cheers
